Attorney General Geoffrey Cox ordered to apologise for failing to register second property
2 min read
Attorney General Geoffrey Cox has been ordered to apologise to MPs for breaking Parliamentary rules over his second property.
The Committee on Standards said after making “two errors in succession” he should write to the House of Commons saying sorry as soon as possible.
A report said the Cabinet minister’s behaviour did not “constitute serious breaches of the rules”, but as he is “the chief Law Officer of the Crown” he “should set a good example by scrupulous observance of the rules”.
All MPs are required to notify parliamentary authorities of any change to their circumstances within 28 days.
The report says Mr Cox informed the Standards Commissioner in January this year “that his financial interest in a property he owned had become registerable in September 2018”, more than three months after the deadline.
The QC, who has been kept on as Attorney General by Boris Johnson, apologised and the matter was not referred to the Committee.
The Committee, which includes members of the public as well as MPs, was then called on to investigate further, concluding: “It accepts, as does the Commissioner, that there was no intention to deceive.
“It does not consider that these constitute serious breaches of the rules, but observes that because there was more than one error, the Commissioner acted rightly in referring the matter to them.”
It adds: “We recommend that Mr Cox should at the earliest opportunity apologise in writing to the House through this Committee for having registered a financial interest late and for having, albeit unintentionally, supplied wrong information about the date at which the interest became registrable.”
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